Lone Star Liberals Are Back
By MIMI SWARTZ
New York Times
Houston
I ALWAYS wondered what it might be like to be a popular kid in high school, and the run-up to Tuesday’s Texas primaries has given me some idea. The phone rings off the hook with recorded calls from Clinton and Obama surrogates, inviting me to this rally or that fund-raiser — from which, once discovered to be a journalist, I am subsequently banished.
My e-mail is similarly clogged with (now) near hysterical pitches to help Hillary Clinton kick off her “One of a Million” tour (Meet Gloria Steinem and the actress Amber Tamblyn!) or to “Barack the Weekend” with a city councilman. My congresswoman, Sheila Jackson Lee, sent me a personal letter on behalf of Hillary Clinton. I am, apparently, on a first-name basis with Mr. Obama’s Texas field director, Mitch Stewart, who graciously helped me find my caucus site with a click of the mouse (“Dear Mimi ...”).
These offers are only slightly less subtle than the entreaties I’ve received from many of Houston’s wealthy, socially prominent Democratic women, who have fallen into sparring camps and are now dissing each other’s candidates with the same zeal they once dissed, well, each other.
Such a situation hasn’t existed in these parts since 1994, when George W. Bush conquered Ann Richards in the governor’s race and proved once and for all, we were told, that the state was in Republican hands. The architect of that Bush victory, presidential consigliere Karl Rove, saw in Governor Richards’s defeat the implosion of the old Texas Democratic coalition — rich white liberals, big labor, trial lawyers and minorities — and, more important, the beginnings of a perpetual Republican majority.
(Continued here.)
New York Times
Houston
I ALWAYS wondered what it might be like to be a popular kid in high school, and the run-up to Tuesday’s Texas primaries has given me some idea. The phone rings off the hook with recorded calls from Clinton and Obama surrogates, inviting me to this rally or that fund-raiser — from which, once discovered to be a journalist, I am subsequently banished.
My e-mail is similarly clogged with (now) near hysterical pitches to help Hillary Clinton kick off her “One of a Million” tour (Meet Gloria Steinem and the actress Amber Tamblyn!) or to “Barack the Weekend” with a city councilman. My congresswoman, Sheila Jackson Lee, sent me a personal letter on behalf of Hillary Clinton. I am, apparently, on a first-name basis with Mr. Obama’s Texas field director, Mitch Stewart, who graciously helped me find my caucus site with a click of the mouse (“Dear Mimi ...”).
These offers are only slightly less subtle than the entreaties I’ve received from many of Houston’s wealthy, socially prominent Democratic women, who have fallen into sparring camps and are now dissing each other’s candidates with the same zeal they once dissed, well, each other.
Such a situation hasn’t existed in these parts since 1994, when George W. Bush conquered Ann Richards in the governor’s race and proved once and for all, we were told, that the state was in Republican hands. The architect of that Bush victory, presidential consigliere Karl Rove, saw in Governor Richards’s defeat the implosion of the old Texas Democratic coalition — rich white liberals, big labor, trial lawyers and minorities — and, more important, the beginnings of a perpetual Republican majority.
(Continued here.)
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